Coma
by keemax
Summary: Set in S01 around Failsafe. What if Artemis' coma had already become permanent when Martian Manhunter stopped the training exercise? Fluffish Traught.


**This is set at the very end of S01 E16 Failsafe and before, during and after S01 E17 Disordered. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing  
**

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"The exercise, it all went wrong." Martian Manhunter muttered tiredly.

"Exercise?" questioned Robin.

"Try to remember," Batman suggested. "What you experienced was a _training_ exercise. Manhunter psychically linked the six of you within an artificial reality, you all knew this going in. What you didn't know was that it was a train for failure exercise, no matter what the team accomplished, the scenario was designed to grow worse. Still you were aware _nothing_ was real, including the deaths of the entire Justice League."

"That is why you hardly grieved," explained Manhunter, looking pointedly at Superboy. "Even when Wolf was disintegrated before your very eyes." he paused, letting the team recount the beginning of the exercise, "But all that changed when Artemis died."

Robin scanned the room for Artemis, wondering how she was taking all of this since she was the first to die. He was expecting her to be frustrated or confused at the very least. He finally spotted her and frowned, because where everyone else had gotten up, she was still laying down on the metal table. Robin quickly looked at his teammates, but none of them seemed to notice Artemis' strange behavior, as all of their attention was focused on what Manhunter was saying.

"Though consciously Miss Martian knew it was not real, her subconscious mind could not make that distinction." Martian Manhunter continued, but Robin barely heard him, did none of them realise that _Artemis hadn't moved? _"She forgot it was only an exercise and her subconscious took control, making all you forget too."

All eyes, except for Robin's, went to M'ggan.

"I-I'm...I'm so sorry." she managed to stutter out, shocked.

"This isn't her fault!" yelled Superboy. "Why didn't you stop the exercise?"

"We tried." Manhunter glared at him. "But M'ggan had... a death grip on the scenario. Even Artemis, who should have awakened upon her death, was so convinced she had passed, she slipped into a coma."

Robin's eyes widened in horror at Manhunters' words, hoping that it wasn't the reason Artemis wasn't moving.

"I realised I would have to wrest control from Miss Martian's subconscious from within, but upon entering the reality, I was overwhelmed by your collective emotion. There was too much..._noise _to think clearly. To remember why I was there."

Robin began to walk over to Artemis, unnoticed, as Manhunter continued,

"The deaths of Aqualad and Superboy helped, but only when the mothership exploded and Robin and Kid Flash were silenced, did my mind clear enough to remember my true purpose. To shock M'ggan out of the exercise, before your comas became permanent." Manhunter ducked his head in shame. "My apologies, I had no idea a training exercise could be so dangerous. So damaging."

M'ggan began to cry, Captain Marvel came over to comfort her.

Martian Manhunter turned to walk away, but he stumbled and would have fell if Batman and Red Tornado hadn't caught him.

"As bad as all that?" Batman asked.

"Perhaps worse."

"Yet this is not what troubles you." Red Tornado clarified, helping Batman pull the Martian to his feet.

"Make no mistake, my niece is untrained and cannot be held responsible for this... for _our_ mistake."

"No-one blames her," Batman reassured him. "But clearly we underestimated her abilities."

"You _understated_." Manhunter corrected, while looking over at his niece, who was sobbing in Captain Marvels' arms. "In terms of raw power, she has the strongest telepathic mind i have ever encountered. Stronger by far than mine."

"Batman, what is Robin doing?" Red Tornado piped up.

While they were all talking, Robin had made his way over to where Artemis was laying, _unmoving, _on one of the metal tables. He was now shaking her by the shoulders, calling her name.

"Robin, stop shaking Artemis. What's wrong?" the entire room turned its attention to Robin and Artemis.

"S-she..." Robin suddenly found it hard to breathe. "She's not waking up."

ooo

After Robin brought the fact of Artemis not being awake to everyone's attention, Batman and Manhunter brought her to the mountains infirmary, leaving the rest of the team to wait for either of them to return with news on her condition.

Finally, Batman rejoined them, but not as the bearer of good news.

"Artemis' coma has become permanent, Martian Manhunter is doing all he can to reach her." he outlined.

"WHAT?" Wally yelled. "You said Martian Manhunter stopped the training exercise BEFORE any of our comas became permanent!"

Surprisingly it was Robin who spoke up.

"It makes sense," he muttered. "Artemis 'died' pretty much in the beginning of the training exercise and there's a big gap from that point to when the rest of us 'died'. It's logically possible that her coma became permanent before ours because of that gap. Meaning, that when Manhunter stopped the exercise in time for us, he was too late for Artemis."

"Oh, and you're just okay with that are you?" Wally turned on him."YOU DON"T EVEN CARE! You acted like her death was just an inconvenience, like it meant _nothing_ to you!"

"Of course it meant something to me!" Robin snapped, fighting to keep his voice calm and level. "But someone needed to get traught."

"Get _traught_? Are you kidding me?" Wally threw his arms up in exasperation. "Don't start using your childish word play, Rob! This isn't a joke, you emotionless little-"

"KID!" Aqualad cut him off, glaring. "I know you are upset about Artemis, we all are," he gestured to where M'ggan was crying and Conner looked enraged, "But do not take your anger out on Robin, it is not his fault Artemis is in a coma and we can blame no-one for it. All we can do is hope for the best."

ooo

As the days slipped by, Artemis' condition remained the same. M'ggan visited her frequently and talked about things in general (she read somewhere that people can still hear you in a coma), she also did her best to help her uncle reach Artemis. Wally, Conner and Kaldur visited her as well, but they didn't talk much, they just sat there silently, deep in their own thoughts. Even members of the Justice League paid Artemis a visit.

There was however, one person who refused to see her.

Robin.

Robin spent his free time training alone in the cave, avoiding everyone. In truth he was frustrated with an almost uncontrollable feeling he had surrounding Artemis. If he saw her again, in the state that she was in, he knew he wouldn't be able to control said emotion.

He had always thought of Artemis as his teammate, a part of the family, nothing more and nothing less. However, he found that with time, his opinions had changed.

When he thought about it, he realised that it all started around the time the Reds attacked.

As Dick Grayson, he had taken a photo of them both on their first day of school that morning, assuring her that they would 'laugh about this someday'. He didn't know what it was, but there was something about her that was different from every other person he'd met before. Despite what his other teammates might think, he trusted her, and he knew that she was one of the few people he'd ever reveal his secret identity to.

Then as Robin, he waited for her outside the entrance to the zeta tubes. The look on her face when he stepped out of the shadows was priceless. Her bluffing abilities were frankly horrible, he'd noted, as she tried to come up with a reasonable excuse about why she was in Gotham.

Looking back, it was actually fortunate that he had waited for her as opposed to entering the cave.

When they finally did go into the mountain, they were attacked by the Reds and thus began the whole drama of trying-to-save-teammates-from-Reds-while-not-getting-killed. During which, Artemis pointed out that they were the only two humans on the team and they were fighting against robots who had captured their four super-powered friends. Robin had to bluntly tell her to 'get traught or get dead', while trying not to focus on his racing heart that only seemed to go faster every time she came near him. Let alone touched him.

Since then, he's been _overwhelmed_ with an emotion he could barely control. He tried to see if it would go away, because it constantly distracted him, but despite his efforts it seemed to grow even more intense. It was a feeling that _only_ Artemis could give him and no-one, not even Zatanna, could make him have the same reaction.

And in time, Robin found that his opinion on Artemis had changed from 'a part of the family' to 'MY Artemis'.

ooo

It had been a week since the training exercise. Batman had expected the team to have brushed off any lingering trauma, but he found that was not the case and Artemis was still in a coma, which made it worse. So, he enlisted Black Canary to give them all a therapy session, in hopes that she could get them to move on with their lives.

Soon enough, Robin found himself on the couch opposite their combat trainer.

"Robin," Black Canary began,"I can't begin to understand what you went through during that training exercise, but I know that you're hurting."

"_Hurting_?" he mumbled, not meeting her gaze, "Try traumatized. I finally become leader and wind up sending all of my friends to their deaths. I-I know I did what I had to, but I _hated_ it. When we started this team I was _desperate_ to be in charge, not anymore." he looked up at Black Canary, worried. "A-And that's not even the worst of it," he directed his glaze to the floor for a second before looking back up as he pleaded, "You...you _can't_ tell Batman."

"Nothing leaves this room." she reassured him.

"I always wanted, e-expected, to...to grow up and...and _become him._A-and the hero bit? I'm still all in!" he paused for a moment, "But that _thing_, inside of him? The thing th-th-that _drives_ him to sacrifice _everything_ for the sake of his mission? That's not me." he sighed softly before continuing, "I-I don't want to be, THE Batman, anymore."

"That's okay," Black Canary spoke softly, "You don't have to be THE Batman if you don't want to. It's your choice."

He nodded, got up to leave and was almost out the door, when she called out to him.

"Robin, just go and visit Artemis, I think it'll help."

ooo

Robin walked into Artemis' room in the mountains' infirmary, gently shutting the door behind him. He had caved and taken Black Canary's advice, being unable to avoid it anymore.

He pulled up a chair next to her bed and sat down. Remaining completely silent, he examined her.

Artemis' breathing was steady, her features were relaxed and her hair had been taken out of its usual ponytail so it fanned around her, in an almost _angelic_ way.

Robin smiled softly, she looked _beautiful_.

He reached out and grasped her hand, holding it gently as he thought about everything. About Artemis, Batman, the team, the training exercise, _everything_.

He had no idea how long he was there, but he was yanked out of his thoughts by the sound of movement.

Robin snapped his head up and stared with wide eyes as Artemis _moved_.

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him, frowning slightly as she managed to mumble,

"Robin?"

He just stared at her, having a thousand different emotions run through him at once. Before he even realised what he doing, he had enveloped her into a hug and clung to her, not wanting to let go.

To say that Artemis was confused would be a _vast_ understatement. She had just woken up from 'dying' and now had Robin clinging to her.

She was just about to push Robin off and demand an explanation, when she noticed something that made her stop in her tracks.

The Boy Wonder was _shaking_.

Gently, she hugged him back. The memory of the alien invasion was fresh in her mind, but she also remembered Martian Manhunter and M'ggan reaching out to her telepathically and telling her that it was a training exercise.

They'd also told her she was in a coma and asked her to wake up. They'd said how much everyone cared about her and how distraught everyone was, in particular Robin.

M'ggan had talked about what was happening in the cave and who did what, but there was one point where she talked about the Boy Wonder.

"_Robin has been acting strange," _she had said_, "He's avoiding everyone and he hasn't come to see you yet. It's not that he doesn't care, I think it's because he can't stand the fact that you're in a coma. I think... I think he likes you Artemis, _really_ likes you, a lot."_

_Oh._

Guess she didn't need that explanation after all.

"I'm okay." Artemis whispered to Robin, doing her best to soothe him. He wasn't crying or anything, just shaking uncontrollably.

"S-sorry," he stuttered, pulling away. He didn't meet her eyes and blushed slightly. "I'm just really glad you're awake."

This did not go unnoticed by Artemis, who smirked. The that blush proved M'ggans' theory to be correct.

"Robin?"

He looked up and their eyes locked. Artemis leaned in, still smirking, and brushed her lips against his.

Robins' eyes widened and he blushed harder, before closing his eyes and returning the kiss, his hand going to the back of her neck.

Gradually, he stopped shaking.

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**Did I manage to keep everyone in character? I hope I did. Sorry if it was OOC.**

**-Keemax**


End file.
